One down, one to go: Ledecky starts busy night with win

OMAHA, NEB. » Katie Ledecky got started on a very busy night at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials by winning the 200-meter freestyle Wednesday, claiming a spot in her second individual event at the Tokyo Games.

Ledecky was set to return about an hour later as an overwhelming favorite in the 1,500 freestyle, a new event for the women at these pandemic-delayed Olympics.

The 200 free was one of four gold medals that Ledecky won at the Rio Games. She’ll get a chance to defend that title after touching in 1 minute, 55.11 seconds, a full body length ahead of the field.

Allison Schmitt, who won this event at the 2012 London Games, is headed to her fourth Olympics at age 31 after holding off Paige Madden by one-hundredth of a second for the runnerup spot behind Ledecky.

Schmitt’s time was 1:56.79, which gives her a likely individual event in Tokyo as well as a spot on the 4x200 free relay. Madden and Katie McLaughlin, who was fourth in 1:57.16, will also head to the Olympics as relay swimmers.

“I knew it was going to be close,” Schmitt said. “I didn’t know how close it was until I got out of the water and saw one-hundredth on the board.”

As Schmitt crossed the deck, her longtime teammate and good friend Michael Phelps raced down from the stands to give her a long embrace. Both swimmers have disclosed their struggles with depression even while performing brilliantly in the pool.

“I don’t even know how to put it into words,” Schmitt said. “He’s been a brother inside the pool and outside the pool. It helped me so much. Even now, when he’s not swimming, he’s a huge part of it.”

Ledecky already won the 400 free, though she wasn’t as fast as expected. She’s also heavily favored in the 800 free, another race she won at Rio, which means she could swim as many as four individual events and perhaps a couple of relays at the Tokyo games.